CHAP. XVI. TRADE OF GERMANY. 9.5 



and for the perfumes, the spices, and the jewels 

 of Asia. 



From the various circumstances connected with 

 Germany internally, from its possessing no foreign 

 trade or navigation, and from the prices of all 

 articles of the first necessity being lower there 

 than in France and England, which have before 

 been noticed *, it does not seem probable, that the 

 gold and silver resting in Germany and in the 

 countries combined with it in this view, could have 

 been so great as in England, if it even equalled 

 that in France and Spain. 



History has indeed furnished us with the annals 

 of a German family, the Fuggers, whose wealth, 

 splendour, and finally honours, would raise our ideas 

 of the commerce of that country to an extraordi- 

 nary height. As illustrating the character of the 

 age, it may not be out of place shortly to trace a 

 family whose exertions had great influence, not 

 only on the general commerce of the period in 

 which they grew up, but more especially on the 

 mining operations of various parts of the world. 

 This family, now a princely house, traces its 

 origin as far back as the year 1370, when the 

 founder of it, who had inherited a small manu- 

 factory of linen cloth in a village near Augsburg, 

 began to extend his trade, and continued it with 

 such success that on his death, in 1409, he left 



1 Vol. i. p. 317. 



